Freshly-minted copycats

Untitled (At a time whenâ¦) 2004
Fisun Gner|Metro5 April 2012
The Weekender

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The mind boggles as to what this Austrian duo have done to deserve a show at a public gallery. One can only suppose that, as Tate Britain's Art Now programme aims to reflect current developments in British art, it's down to nothing more than their currently fashionable status.

For this show of freshly-minted work, there's absolutely nothing new - just the same detailed paintings and drawings of vacantlooking youth copied from the ads of style mags that has been their stock-in-trade for some time.

These extra thin, lithe models typically drape themselves over each other as if feigning preternatural exhaustion. Underneath each piece are texts lifted from the mags and collaged to form new meanings, usually utterances of New Age drivel.

Accompanying this is a blackand-white video showing derelict grassland on which young people stare blank-eyed as if waiting to be beamed up by a spaceship.

Baroque music accompanies an ominous voice-over spouting the sort of nonsense you might hear in announcements of the impending apocalypse.

Since Muntean and Rosenblum appear to be little more than dedicated copyists, it's unclear what the artists intend to say with their pieces, or how they might work as commentaries. If the work's this jaw-droppingly awful, however, any mission statement might not be that illuminating.

Until Jun 20, Tate Britain, Millbank SW1, daily 10am to 5.50pm, free. Tel: 020 7887 8008. www.tate.org.uk Tube: Pimlico

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